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real property make a community of profits from land quite impossible , and that the legislature are not likely to alter the laws in this respect upon any suggestion of Mr . Owen ' s .
It has also been said that these plans have a tendency to the equalization of ranks . This notion is connected with , and depends upon , the erroneous one that they involve a community of goods . If the laws of property are preserved , and
the plan . rests as it does , upon the supposition of its being a profitable mode of investing capital , it has no other tendency to equalization than all plans which liave for their object the extension of the comforts , the intelligence , and the virtues of the poorer classes of society .
7 . It has also been said that injury is to be apprehended from the withdrawing of capita ) , now employed advantageously in other concerns . The Committee are at a loss how to appreciate this objection unless by considering it to have been made under the mistaken notion that the capital was to
be advanced as matter of charity . This is not so : Mr . Owen pledges himself that the capital shall return an adequate profit ; and the grounds on wbich the Committee have reason to believe that the expectation may be well-founded are stated above ; unless that should be the result it is
acknowledged that the plan must be considered as having failed , and must be abandoned : but if it should turn out to be a profitable mode of investing capital , the Committee are at a loss to understand what objections will apply to the withdrawing of the necessary quantity of capital from other concerns which will not apply to all ordinary cases of the shifting of capital .
8 . Again it is objected , that this is a scheme for perpetuating the poor-laws , and for adding to the amount of relief bestowed upon paupers . This objection must be founded on another mistaken
notion , that it is intended to apply to Parliament for an act to authorize the support of paupers in this way . The Committee beg leave most distinctly to deny any such intention , and to express their opinion that it would be mischievous if it were feasible
to support the plan artificially or by any law . If it shall turn out to be profitable , it will live by the operation of individual interest ; if it is not profitable , it will have failed . As far as a subscription can be deemed artificial support , it is resorted
to solely for the purpose of trying * the experiment whether the plan be profitable or wot ; and of subjecting to actual observation details which are not likely to be generally comprehended while they rest in statement .
9 . The objections , that tbe plan lias a tendency to promote too rapid am increase of population , re » t upon the same suppo-
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sition of tbe community of goods , and that supposition being removed , fall to tbe ground . If the encouragement to
population consists merely in tbe increase of comforts , whicb capital , thus employed , may bestow upon the labouring classes at the Same time that it repays the capitalist , the Committee conceive that there can be
no objection to * such encouragement . 10 . A different class of objectors represent that it will destroy the independence of the peasantry , break up their domestic habits , and place them too much udder the
controul of their employers , deaden tbeir faculties , and convert them into mere machines . It is believed that these apprehensions have arisen almost entirely from one part of the plan , namely , that arrangements should be formed to enable the
labourers and their families , in each establishment , to eat in common . Little doubt is entertained that the advantages of this plan would be so evident , that it would be generally adopted 5 but no sort of
compulsion or even persuasion would be resorted to : the workmen might receive their wages in money , and tbe mode in which they might dispose of them would be entirely at their own option . The Committee wish to remind those who value domestic
habits and independence so highly , that the domestic enjoyments of tbe manufacturers , who now work sixteen hours aday in the mills , cannot be very great : and that the independence of all labourers
is greatly affected by the present state of the poor-laws , particularly the independence of those labourers in agriculture , who , in the prime of life , and in full
health and vigour , have their wages systematically eked out by an addition of weekly relief from the overseer . The proposed plans , while they would afford greater comforts , would , it seems probable , 1
afford greater opportunities of saving ; and as there would be the most perfect liberty of leaving the establishment at any time , it is not easy to see how the independence of any one could be diminished . The objection that the faculties would be deadened
by a system , of which universal education and varied employment is the basis , seems to the Committee to he a singlarone : in fact , one of the most questionable parts of the system , as far as its profit is concerned , is the union of manufacturing- and
agricultural employment ; but the efficacy of that arrangement , as far as it can be carried into practice , in putting a stop to the brutalizing effects which have been produced by forcing * the division of labour to a point at which it defeats its own object , cannot be doubted .
11 . The Committee , on tbe whole , « ubmit to the public , that the present state of the poor and labouring' clashes cannot continue , and that some remedy must be
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Intelligence *—Mr . Owen ' s Plan for Providing for the Poor * 645
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1819, page 643, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1777/page/55/
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